Anne Kingsmill Finch
The Lyon And The Gnat
To the still Covert of a Wood About the prime of Day, A Lyon, satiated with Food, With stately Pace, and sullen Mood, Now took his lazy way. To Rest he there himself compos’d,
The Owl Describing her Young Ones
Why was that baleful Creature made, Which seeks our Quiet to invade, And screams ill Omens through the Shade? ‘Twas, sure, for every Mortals good, When, by wrong painting of her Brood, She doom’d
Jealousy
VAIN Love, why do’st thou boast of Wings, That cannot help thee to retire! When such quick Flames Suspicion brings, As do the Heart about thee fire. Still Swift to come, but when to
La Passion Vaincue
On the Banks of the Severn a desperate Maid (Whom some Shepherd, neglecting his Vows, had betray’d,) Stood resolving to banish all Sense of the Pain, And pursue, thro’ her Death, a Revenge on
The Unequal Fetters
Cou’d we stop the time that’s flying Or recall itt when ’tis past Put far off the day of Dying Or make Youth for ever last To Love wou’d then be worth our cost.
The King and the Shepherd
Through ev’ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains Reason’s lost Throne, and sov’reign Rule maintains. Tho’ beyond Love’s, Ambition’s Empire goes; For who feels Love, Ambition also knows,
Reformation
A Gentleman, most wretched in his Lot, A wrangling and reproving Wife had got, Who, tho’ she curb’d his Pleasures, and his Food, Call’d him My Dear, and did it for his Good, Ills
The Bird and the Arras
By neer resemblance see that Bird betray’d Who takes the well wrought Arras for a shade There hopes to pearch and with a chearfull Tune O’re-passe the scortchings of the sultry Noon. But soon
Consolation
See, Phoebus breaking from the willing skies, See, how the soaring Lark, does with him rise, And through the air, is such a journy borne As if she never thought of a return. Now,
Fragment at Tunbridge-Wells
FOR He, that made, must new create us, Ere Seneca, or Epictetus, With all their serious Admonitions, Can, for the Spleen, prove good Physicians. The Heart’s unruly Palpitation Will not be laid by a
On the Death of the Honourable Mr. James Thynne
Farewell, lov’d Youth! since ’twas the Will of Heaven So soon to take, what had so late been giv’n; And thus our Expectations to destroy, Raising a Grief, where we had form’d a Joy;
The Tree
Fair tree! for thy delightful shade ‘Tis just that some return be made; Sure some return is due from me To thy cool shadows, and to thee. When thou to birds dost shelter give,
To The Painter Of An Ill-drawn Picture of Cleone
Sooner I’d praise a Cloud which Light beguiles, Than thy rash Hand which robs this Face of Smiles; And does that sweet and pleasing Air control, Which to us paints the fair CLEONE’s Soul.
The Atheist And The Acorn
Methinks this World is oddly made, And ev’ry thing’s amiss, A dull presuming Atheist said, As stretch’d he lay beneath a Shade; And instanced in this: Behold, quoth he, that mighty thing, A Pumpkin,
Hope
The Tree of Knowledge we in Eden prov’d; The Tree of Life was thence to Heav’n remov’d: Hope is the growth of Earth, the only Plant, Which either Heav’n, or Paradise cou’d want. Hell